"I feel a terrible need for religion,” wrote Vincent van Gogh in a letter to his brother Theo while working on The Starry Night. The words used much later by Henri Dutilleux in his Correspondances could perhaps be endorsed by all the composers who, like him, stubbornly cared for the Catholic spirit of an increasingly secularized France in the 20th century. The concert of the NFM choirs will feature the music of four of them – Jean Langlais, Francis Poulenc, Maurice Duruflé and the most famous of them – Olivier Messiaen. The ensembles will be accompanied by the organist of the choir of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Yves Castagnet.

Castagnet has been working in the biggest church on Île de la Cité since 1988 – when, at the age of just twenty-four, he won the prestigious Grand Prix de Chartres organ competition. At Notre Dame, he worked for some time with Lionel Sow, who was then head of the Maîtrise Notre Dame de Paris choir school. In 2013, when the eight hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the famous cathedral was celebrated, Castagnet dedicated a new setting of the words of the anthem Veni Sancte Spiritus to the Lionel Sow, currently artistic director of the NFM Choir. The inspiration for the work was the original chorale melody of the anthem performed on the Feast of Pentecost. Another contemporary French artist whose music features in the concert programme will be Fabrice Gregorutti – he is not only a composer, but also a successful conductor and organiser of musical life. His Et lux perpetua will have its world premiere in Wrocław.

The biggest, and certainly also the best-known work in the concert programme will be Requiem op. 9 by Maurice Duruflé composed in 1947. The composer said about it that it is not “some ephemeral work about detachment from earthly concerns”, but that “it reflects, in the unchanging form of Christian prayer, the pain of the human being facing their ultimate destiny”. The nine-movement funeral mass uses traditional Gregorian melodies, but dresses them in non-traditional robes of modern harmony. The work, one of only fourteen published by Duruflé, is famous for its beauty.